Social media grocery

Our daily consumption is like grocery shopping. You walk in with a cart and some money, but you’ve got the same time and the same budget as everyone else.

The difference is which aisle you go to.

If you head straight for the candy section, that’s social media. Feeds, shorts, all refined sugar. Easy to grab, good in the moment, but leaves you hollow five minutes later. You don’t even have to choose what goes in the cart. The algorithm does it. You just hold the bag open. When I quit social media, I didn’t stop shopping. I changed aisles.

Now I browse the fresh section. Long blog posts, books, four-hour podcasts. Stuff that takes time, that doesn’t have flashy packaging, that doesn’t scream pick me, but that leaves me feeling different after. One good thing leads to another. An article opens a rabbit hole. A rabbit hole becomes a book. The cart fills up in a way that makes sense.

The strangest part: the budget didn’t change. Same hours as before. Same cart, same money. I’m just the one spending it now, not the algorithm.

And the gap between wandering aimlessly through the candy aisle and wandering aimlessly through the books section is enormous. In both cases you’re letting chance surprise you. But in one you’re feeding yourself. In the other you’re just filling up.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​